Relationships

So I recently read an article that struck me as unusual. I can’t remember the exact title but it was marriage advice from a divorced woman. 

The article listed a bunch of things that you should and shouldn’t do to keep your marriage. What struck me as unusual- was that it was all common sense stuff. Tell your man he looks good, don’t bash him in public, be intimate. 

I’m just wondering, what kind of world do we live in where we have to be reminded to do or not do these things? Don’t bash your husband in public? Really?

My mother always told me to treat people how I want to be treated, and that is how I try to carry myself in all aspects, including my relationship. 

-A

Rainy Days and Ruined Pizza

Rainy days call for being lazy, eating food you didn’t prepare, and binge watching Netflix. It’s not a time to be productive, but a time to open up your window and listen to the melody of the rain hitting the group. It’s lovely.

I decided to order pizza because my 4 day old doughnuts weren’t cutting it. Around the 3rd day doughnuts are still delicious yet unrewarding. 

The pizza arrived pretty fast and I was excited to dive in. I flipped open the box expecting to see a warm, cheesy, crusty pie topped with onions but instead my pie had the circle of doom.

The circle of doom – when the middle of the pizza box strips all the cheese and pride from your pizza leaving it partially naked and ashamed. 

Be honest. Doesn’t this pizza just look miserable? It’s one thing if the side of the pizza is messed up because then you can just eat around it, but the circle of doom ensures that every slice is messed up! EVERY SLICE!!!!

So what’d I do?

I called the pizza place and complained. Yes, I’m petty, but imagine how weird second day pizza is going to taste when half the slice is naked. At that point I’d just have to cut the slice to where the fun begins which really leaves me with half a pizza. Thankfully, they gave me credit to my next order! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

 So we’ll be ordering again tomorrow. Just kidding, that’s excessive. 

-M

Your Pictures Are Disgusting!!

Quick rant.

Why do people advertise their garage sales with photos of the most disgusting, chaotic, dirty items from around their house? 

I’m part of multiple online yard sale pages and I just wonder why people do the things they do. Do you really think you dumping all your stuff into one pile is going to look appealing to me? 

“Yes, I would just love to come over and go through all of your dirty blankets, old shoes, and broken down kitchen tools”

If you really want to make some money and attract some attention…how about you at least line up your shoes (and dust them off) before you take the photo?!

How about you fold those blankets instead of dumping them on your lawn?

Better yet, how about you actually organize and prepare for your garage sale? 

Does anyone else see this in their area? 

-M

Red Lobster – Lobster Roll

Yup you read that right. Right now Red Lobster is serving up Lobster rolls on their menu.

I was scrolling through Facebook the other night when a yummy looking lobster roll showed up on my home page. Instantly I knew I needed one.  

I called Red Lobster the next day as soon as I woke up to place a to go order. I couldn’t wait to see what the hype was all about.

I got to the restaurant and waited a ridiculous amount of time to pick up my food….but I guess that’s a whole different story.

I’m a weirdo and I feel strange going through my order while in the restaurant. So I did a quick peek inside the bag to make sure everything was there and then I ran to my car to really investigate.

Before I continue with the story here’s a picture from the Red Lobster website of the roll.

You get everything you see in the above picture for $10. The Lobster roll, French fries, a choice of soup or salad, and their biscuits. Not a bad deal for $10. 

They describe their new menu item in the following way:

“The NEW! Lobster Roll features sweet Maine lobster meat tossed in lemon aioli on a toasted roll – split on the top, never on the side. ” – Red Lobster Press Release 3/6/17

Okay, so now that you have the official statement I can continue with the story. 

As I opened up the bag in my car I noticed that the Lobster meat was piled onto the roll. I didn’t want to get to scrutinizing the food just yet and waited till I got home to really see what Red Lobster was working with.

I would like you to note, before I show you my photos, that I did nuke the food before I ate it. By the time I waited in line and got home the food was a bit on the cold side. This did make the bread wilt some, but for the most part I felt like the integrity of the food remained pretty much the same.

I wanted to take pictures from a few different angles so you could really grasp what I’m about to say.

As you can see from the photos the meat was legit just placed into the center of the bun. It looks like someone took an icecream scooper, portioned out some meat via the scooper, and then placed it directly on top of the bun. When Red Lobster stated that the meat was “on” a roll they really weren’t kidding. I guess next time I should be looking for the word “in” a roll. 

I’m not sure if the meat placed directly in the middle was to give an illusion that there was more meat than there really was, but in all honesty it just looks like Lobster meat drowning in bun. 

I was hoping for something that looked similar to the picture where the meat was “in” the bun and went from end to end. I guess that’s what you get when you trust an ad? 

Okay, on to the taste part.

I believe I read from another site that the lemon aioli also has some basil in it. If you look back at my pictures there is some sort of green herb in it. Either way, it made the lobster taste strange. Before you ask, no im not one of those “basil tastes like soap” people. If you can see from the photo it’s not like the herb is even properly mixed in and the chop work looks like something I did while drunk. If the meat just had a healthy coat of butter it probably would’ve been way better. The bun was probably the best part of the concoction and then most filling. It tasted similar to a Hawaiian roll. The actual sandwich left me wanting more, but not in a good way. More so in a “I’m still hungry” type of thing.

The french fries were super basic and there’s really nothing to say about them.

The biscuits strangely tasted like someone sprinkled a ramen noodle seasoning packet on it. I normally like their biscuits, but the taste threw me off. I wasn’t sure if this is a new recipe they’re trying out or if my taste buds were just picky after the sad roll.

I ordered New England clam chowder as my soup and I figured you really couldn’t go wrong with this. Except it tasted like straight milk. 

In my mind I see one chef saying to another, “our soup is almost out, you need to cut it. Cut it, cut it, cut it, cut it.” 

Seriously, the one thing I was counting on was just a milky waste. 

I’ve never been this disappointed with Red Lobster before. I would love to say, “hey for $10 not bad”, but I really can’t. It really wasn’t worth it. 

I would rather go to McAllisters and grab a sandwich , a pickle, a side, and a piece of chocolate cake for $11.      

Shoot, I would’ve even picked McDonalds over that. Yeah, that bad guys. 

All in all, if you want to try it I hope you have a better experience than I did. The great thing about this blog though is that I’m always willing to try the latest menu items so that you don’t have to! If you have your eye on something and you want me try it, let me know in the comments!

-M

Night Treats

I’ve got some weird Cinderella type of thing going on. When the clock hits 2am I go from ordinary girl to a knock off version of Martha Stewart. I was texting my girls when one of them stated that they just made crepes. Oh goodness I wish she never said it. As soon as the text came across the screen I was opening up google and looking up how to make me some. 

I sat in bed for a good five minutes debating if it was a proper time to be eating crepes. But then I remember I’m an adult and I can eat whatever I want when I want. Yay for adulting! 

I found a pretty basic crepe recipe online and cut it in half. There’s no need to make a million crepes when really I just want a few bites to satisfy this craving. 

My crepes came out kinda ugly, but incredibly delicious. 

This is probably the second time I’ve ever made them and I’d have to say it was easier than instant pancakes. I will for sure be making these again.

I wonder what I’ll be making tomorrow at 2am? 

-M

2am Cravings

There’s something special about Facebook at 2am. All of a sudden you click on one post that takes you to another and so on until you’re watching a video about a talking turtle. You have no idea how you got there, how much time you just wasted, or what else is going on in the world. It’s like it’s own world.

As I was sucked into this world the other night I came across a post.

A simple post about toast. 

Except this post somehow stuck it’s claws in me and demanded that I go most toast. Looking at the time creeping towards 2am I figured it was a bad idea to make such a sugary treat. 

Yet, minutes later I found myself standing in my dark kitchen hovering over my glowing toaster. 

Ah the warmth a toaster can provide on a cold night.

Somehow my toast came out nothing like the picture. I think I was a bit heavy handed on the cinnamon. Guess my coordination slows down sometime after 10pm. 

Looking at that toast now makes me giggle. Mine looks all crusty and dirty compared to the Facebook photo. Nonetheless it was still delicious. 

Has Facebook made you crave anything lately? Leave it in the comments! 

-M 

Don’t Compare

If you’re relatively active on Facebook you’ve seen some articles floating around about pregnant women working out. 

If not here’s the link: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a8579714/pregnancy-workouts/

As you can see some of these women are super far along and they are doing some major work in the gym. After a few well meaning people sent me this article I began to think about my gym life. 

Before I was pregnant I would run a few times a week. Anywhere from 3-6 miles. However, I stopped working out shortly after I got pregnant. I suffered with extreme morning sickness for 18 weeks. After that I slowly began to work up my strength to be able to even do simple tasks around the house. 

Now, coming closer to the end of this journey, I received this article and it made me want to push myself to do more. Except, I took it to the extreme. I joined up with my family in doing Fitbit challenges and decided I had to win. Winning with my family means putting in at least 3 miles a day. Which may not seem like a lot, but when you’re already waddling like a penguin it’s a pretty big deal.

So, I bit off more than I could chew and would walk around constantly in trying to beat out my completion.

I ended up walking 19 miles that week and ultimately my body suffered. My hips began to burn, my back was thrown out, I was exhausted, and my feet hurt. Which is probably normally pains from working out hard, but when you’re already pregnant adding more to my plate was just too much. 

I learned that it’s best not to compare my pregnancy journey to anyone else’s. I think those women that can go out there and beast in the gym are awesome. I also think that momma sitting on the couch just trying to make it through is a rock star too. Pregnancy is a lot on the body in general and every woman going through it should take the time to pat herself on the back for coming this far. 

I will continue to try to maintain an active lifestyle throughout the remainder of my pregnancy, but I will also keep in mind that I’m amazing without having to try so hard. This was a reminder on how much God loves me and I don’t need to prove anything. 

-M

How To Make Jamaican Curry Chicken

In my teen years curry chicken was a staple. We had a family friend that was born and raised in Jamaica and he knew how to throw down in the kitchen. At one of my birthday party’s he came over and made curry chicken (or as he would like to call it stewed chicken) for my mother and I to enjoy for the week. Well by the end of the party the pot was empty and all that was left was the gravy. My hungry drunken friends kept sneaking into the kitchen and stealing the wings out the pot. He didn’t even get mad though because he enjoyed feeding others. He was a chef by nature and trade. 

I was watching the food network channel at 2am the other night and they were showcasing a Jamaican restaurant that had curried goat. Oh my gosh I wanted it so badly. I started looking up the nearest Jamaican restaurants near me, but was dismayed when I found out the closest one was over two hours away. I live in a cultural desert. 🌵I decided I was just going to make it myself the next day as I’ve seen it being cooked a million times. I quickly shut my eyes and fell fast to sleep knowing I was going to eat good the next day.

I woke up the next morning and called my mom for the recipe. She started rambling off what goes into the meal, “a bit of onions, some oil, add your pototatoes”, I had to stop her because this list wasn’t going to make the perfect chicken curry. I needed exact measurements if I was going to duplicate the meal I enjoyed during my childhood. “Sorry mom, but I need exact measurements and exact cooking times”. My mom said she didn’t know how to do it like that and she just always went with how it looked and felt. 😒 Okayyyyy mom. 

So I hit up the next best resource. Google. 

Side note anytime I ask my sister how to do anything she refers me to google. Ask her about it. 

Okay, so I found a recipe on google that had some legit pictures and pretty good ratings. You know the recipe is good if there’s more than one picture on the site.  

Here’s the link http://allrecipes.com/recipe/237441/jamaican-curry-chicken/

As I was going through the ingredients I realized I didn’t have a lot of the vegetables. I figured screw it, I don’t even like vegetables that much and my husband is going to pick around them anyways. Okay, so moving away from that hurdle I realized I didn’t have the right oil or the right seasonings. 😑 I’m the worst. Who doesn’t prepare for a meal before actually being hands deep in chicken trying to make it? 

So all of a sudden a beautiful floating image of my mother appeared in the kitchen and she repeated back what she said earlier to me that day. “Just go with the feel and the look M”.  Good looks mom, I guess I’ll do just that. 

I decided to loosely follow the recipe and go with what I know. I mean I’ve seen this done before, I can do this, right?!

Okay so here’s what happened….

I lined a pan to season my chicken. You can see all my seasonings in the picture, but if you don’t know what one is feel free to ask in the comments.

Next, I added all the seasonings on to chicken legs. It was what I had in my freezer and I prefer to use up things in my kitchen before I go out to buy more.

Don’t be afraid to get your hands in there and really rub those legs. If your hands aren’t stained yellow afterwards you probably weren’t aggressive enough.

Oh very very very important. Please make sure you get the right curry powder at the store. I tried to make this once three years ago and mistakenly bought Indian curry powder thinking it would still work. Make sure the container says Jamaican. The one on the right is the WRONG one. Save yourself the trouble and search for the right kind.

After that I lightly browned the chicken in oil. I over crowded my pan so I had to do some maneuvering of switching between two pans.

Here’s the chicken with a bit of an oil tan on it.

As you can see when you reach this style you’ll be happy that you really worked the seasoning on. It would’ve sucked to reach this part and have it all fall off. Also if you notice this picture has less legs than the first one. I started moving the browned pieces to my second pot that had the water going (see recipe).

I covered and allowed the chicken to cook in the water as the recipe called for. 

The chicken started to fall off the bone and was the delicious warm yellow color. My house smelled amazing.

 Oh, make sure you move all laundry and close your bedroom doors or else you’ll smell like curry for weeks. 

As the chicken is resting cook down the remaining liquid to get a gravy. 

I didn’t add any vegetables of potatoes in the beginning of the recipe as it called for. The potatoes I did have were frozen and I wanted to add it to the gravy last to ensure it didn’t disintegrate in the high heat. 

I’m a huge fan of frozen veggies. I feel like it’s fast and easy and I can make a meal for my family super quick so I always have them on hand. I decided to pull them out at this point and throw them into the pot. 

The sour cream flavor made the gravy even better. 

With curry chicken you need some sort of rice so I pulled out my frozen rice too.

The rice only takes less than 5 minutes to make and always comes out perfect.

Here’s the meal all put together. 

Can you tell which plate is my husbands? Okay, so I know it looks super sloppy and it’s not a picture from Martha Stewart, but it’s good. Like finger licking good. So good I had to get my husband to stop eating it so he’d have leftovers for the next day (which we also fought over). 

Try out the recipe and let me know what you think. Remember, if you don’t have the item sub it for something else. 

-M

Night Crew Cravings

I decided to visit McDonalds the other night in attempts to keep those pregnancy cravings at bay. It was my second time going there that day. I know shame on me blah blah blah.

As I pulled up to the first window I noticed the lady I seen earlier in the day before 3pm was still there around 12am. As the place was dead I decided to sit and chit chat with her. I know how rough long hours can be serving needy (and most likely rude) people. 

The next window was an older black gentleman probably in his 60s that had the biggest smile on his face. I was getting an icecream sundae and was in desperate need of as many peanut packets I could manage to snag. I matched the ol mans smile and begged him to give me more than 2 packets of nuts. Man this guy reached into their supply and pulled out the biggest handful I’ve ever been able to score from Mcdonalds. He said “you come back with that nice smile now”.

You know sir, I will. It’s wonderful to me that just being kind can get you the best things in life, like enough peanuts to make the squiggly baby in my belly happy. 

-M

Scrape It Off

I have so much going on in life right now- and I’ve got some juicy stuff to tell you, but I can’t right now. 

Right now I want to talk about something that just messed my morning up! In case you don’t know, mornings are important because it’s the setup for the day. This may be just for me, but how my morning goes- dictates how the rest of the day will follow. 

I had a shitty morning, things didn’t go right. I spilled oats on my kitchen floor and then I couldn’t find the broom. And then there’s other crap that happened, but this isn’t what I’m going to talk about. I actually…want to do a review of something I tried.

Did you guys know that I’m a tea drinker? Have I mentioned that before? Well, in case I didn’t- I drink tea. Daily. I really enjoy it and I’m a weirdo who really doesn’t need anything in it, I enjoy the natural flavors. 

I opened my desk drawer and seen this guy:

Well well well. Why not? Let’s try it. 

Apparently, it’s supposed to be good for you. See all the healthy stuff listed the at the bottom?

Well I prepared my cup and took a sip. And then another. Something was wrong. This tea…tastes bad. It’s got a strong strange taste. Wanna know the worst part? The AFTERTASTE- is reminiscent…of garbage juice. Damn that’s gross. On first taste it tastes like something that could be healthy, and then the nasty pops you in your mouth. So to summarize- this tea is foul as f. 

But hey…maybe I’m crazy, try it for yourself if you dare! 
Miracle Tree – Organic Moringa Superfood Tea, 25 Individually Sealed Tea Bags, Mango

-A